


Perfectly Broken but fixable

by SailorHeichou



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Cutting, Grisha Yeager's Bad Parenting, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Minor Character Death, Physical Abuse, Regret, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:23:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorHeichou/pseuds/SailorHeichou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commission for sentimental-stories on tumblr! </p><p>Eren goes above and beyond to be the perfect son for his Mother and Father. He's the captain of the Basketball team, he gets good grades but he has no friends at all. His father is never home and his mother drinks to forget that her husband is a cheater. Eren is always getting into fights with bullies at school while also bullying those that are weaker than him because it's what his father would expect from him but Eren doesn't want any of this. </p><p>After his mother dies, Eren moves away and attends a new school where he meets an unusual trio of friends. Hanji, Levi and Erwin. The three of them stick to Eren like glue and even attend the same university as Eren but the boy is so broken that he simply won't let anyone in. Levi has been in love with Eren since the moment he saw him, but can he and his two best friends be to ones to mend Eren's broken pieces? More importantly, will Eren even let them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfectly Broken but fixable

For as long as Eren could remember, all he had ever been told was to be the perfect son. His mother would constantly drill this into his head, that if he was the perfect son and did everything his father told him to do, his father wouldn't leave them. Eren wanted to please his parents so terribly, so he always made sure to get good grades and do everything that's asked of him without protest. 

There was one incident, when Eren was eight years old, he had gotten a B on his math test. His mother had been furious with him when he brought home such a low grade and she beat him for the first time in his life. Since then, the beatings became a way to control Eren, to instill fear into the young boy to make sure he did everything absolutely _perfectly_. 

It was always a stressful time whenever his father was home for long periods of time. Those were usually the times when his mother was mostly on edge, hurrying about the house and making sure she kept her husband happy but in the end the result was always the same. His father would stay for a week or two, then he would pack a suit case and leave for a couple of months on end. Eren couldn't tell which was worse; His father being home or his father not being home. 

At least when his father was home, his mother beat him a lot less but it was a lot harder to breath let alone sneeze without worrying about angering his mother for not being _perfect_. It got to the point where Eren couldn't make any friends at school. He kept to himself because he couldn't be bothered with making friends, he needed to study and get good grades so his mother wouldn't beat him again. When his father wasn't home, his mother drank herself stupid. When he would come home from school, he'd usually find his mother passed out in the kitchen with a half empty bottle in her hands and dried tears on her cheeks. 

Despite his mother's cruel treatment, Eren loved his mother and he would do anything for her. There was a time when his mother looked at him lovingly and held him gently and told him soft words and it was those times that Eren held dear to his heart. No matter what his mother did to him, he would do everything in his power to please her. She deserved a perfect son. 

As Eren grew older, his lack of friends at school caused him to start getting bullied everyday. Never being raised to be a weakling, Eren fought off his bullies and eventually he turned into a bully himself, bullying and beating on those weaker than him. First it started with a blond boy named Armin. He was an innocent person, someone Eren sat next to in class and sometimes studied with. He was probably the closest thing to a friend Eren had but instead he ended up bullying the boy who had only ever been kind to him in return. 

Once his bullying of Armin started, so did the death threats. Eren was officially a bully in everyone's eyes and there was nothing he could do to fix it. When he entered High school, things only got worse. His father wanted him to be in some kind of sport so Eren tried out for the Basketball team. It was one of the few moments in his life that he was proud of because he could honestly say his father had looked at him with something akin to pride in his eyes the day Eren came home from school and broke the news to his father. 

He still dealt with his bullies and the death treats from his classmates. He also casually dealt with the tacks he would find in his shoes or when his gym clothes would go missing only to reappear torn into shreds and shoved inside his desk that had been doused in garbage. There was a new death threat in his locker every morning but Eren simply brushed them off. They bothered him, of course they did, but what could he possibly do about it? 

Eventually, Eren learned to befriend the jocks and the guys who used to bully him on a daily basis. Jean and Bertholdt were on the Basketball team and Reiner was a quarter back for their school's football team. The three of them often ganged up on weaker students like Armin or Marco Bodt or another short kid with a buzz cut named Connie Springer. They pretended to treat Eren as a friend but the brunet knew, it was all a lie. They only liked to hang around with him because his dad was filthy rich and he had a lot of nice things. 

Eren continued with his studies and continued to get good grades, all while making sure to do his absolute best during his teams basketball games. His hard work eventually led him to become the Captain of his basketball team. Despite this, Eren still dealt with the threats from his classmates and the bullying on a daily basis. It didn't bother him, because deep down he knew he deserved it. He could deal with the bullying, he could deal with the death threats and he could even deal with not having a single friend but there was one thing he absolutely could _not_ deal with and that was losing his mother. 

It was the eve of his 16th Birthday. His parents had gotten into an argument the night before resulting in his father yelling at his mother that he was leaving to another woman's house and then he was gone. He mother was so distraught that despite the late hour, she went into Eren's room and started beating him and he just laid there and let her. He would let his mother take out her frustrations on him, he didn't mind it. If it eased his mothers worries and made her feel better, he'd take anything she had to give him. 

It wasn't until the next day when he came home from basketball practice that he found his mother passed out at the kitchen table with several more bottles than usual. At first, he was slightly worried considering she never usually drank that much so he left her alone for awhile, telling himself that if she didn't come around within the next couple of hours he'd check on her again. It wasn't uncommon for her to drink herself until she blacked out and sometimes she wouldn't wake up until the next mornings, in which Eren would carry her up to her bedroom but this time was different. Something was wrong and Eren sat quietly in his room, stomach filled with knots of anxiety as he struggled to come up with what he should do. 

Finally, he settled on calling an ambulance. He wouldn't take a chance that perhaps his mother might have given herself alcohol poisoning this time and the EMS arrived shortly after he called taking his unconscious mother out in a thin stretcher toward Maria State Hospital. He took the ambulance with his mother and tried to call his father multiple times during the ride and even during the agonizing wait in the waiting room as they tried to pump his mother's stomach of the alcohol but there was never any answer and Eren found himself huddled in a corner hallway silently doing his best to hold in his sobs. He was terrified. He couldn't lose his mother, she was the only thing that made living this life bearable anymore even though she was part of the reason he hated his life. But no matter what, he could never hate her. 

When the Emergency Room Doctor came out and delivered the bad news, that Eren's mother didn't make it and there was simply too much damage to her liver after years and year of alcohol abuse, Eren felt like his world was crumbling down around him. He didn't remember how he got home although he guessed he must have taken a taxi or something because the next morning when he woke up reluctantly, eyes puffy and crusty from the dried tears, he was already laying in his bed still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing since he got home from basketball practice yesterday. 

That morning his father came home. He had just come from the hospital after they somehow managed to get a hold of him and broke the bad news about his wife to him. When Eren's father walked through the door of his bedroom, Eren could see the pain and hurt in his eyes but he also saw the way his father was looking at him with pure disdain in his dark green eyes. That morning, Eren's father beat him for the first time. 

_"It's your fault she's dead! You're the reason she died you worthless piece of trash! Why were you ever born!? It's your fault! Your fault!!"_

Those were the unforgettable words that were repeated over and over at him as Grisha beat him until he was too tired to raise his fists anymore and through out the entire ordeal, Eren simply let him. Because his father was right. It was his fault his mother had died. He wasn't a good enough son for her and he couldn't stop his father from leaving them that night, if he had been a better son, gotten a higher mark on his last test then maybe his father would have stayed that night before his sixteenth birthday and maybe his mother wouldn't have drank herself to death and maybe she would still be here with him. 

Eren's life took a turn for the worse after that. He liked to think he was a pretty happy person in general despite his situation. He always tried to look on the positive side of things. Despite his mother always forcing him to be perfect and beating him when he got bad grades, Eren at least wasn't homeless. He wasn't living on the streets with nothing to eat. He had a beautiful two-story home, a roof over his head, a semi-warm meal on the table whenever his mother wasn't drowning in her sorrows and he had an abundance of money to use whenever he felt like buying something he wanted. But now that his mother was gone, Eren just couldn't see the positive side of anything anymore. 

After the first time his father had beat him, Eren sat in his room bleeding and aching all over as he slumped his back against the edge of his bed. He had always been told that cutting and other forms of self-harm were for weak minded people who simply couldn't handle the real world but as he sat there, cradling his split and bleeding lip with one hand , he reached into one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out an old razor he had. He haphazardly broke it into pieces, taking one of the thin silver blades between his fingers that were already lightly cut from trying to break the razor blade apart. 

As he turned the blade over between his fingers, over and over, watching as the cool metal reflected his beaten and bruised face, he couldn't help but find some sort of strange form of comfort while holding that blade in his fingers and before he knew it, he was pushing the sleeves of his green hoodie up past the elbows and pressing the edge of the blade to the soft, tender underside of his forearm where he pressed and dragged a perfectly thin line of crimson across. The first time he ran the blade across his skin, he didn't apply enough pressure for it to bleed so he repeated it once more until finally the small tiny pearls of ruby red started beading out from the perfect line and despite the light stinging pain, Eren smiled at that perfect line. _Perfect_. It was a perfectly straight line. 

Eren became obsessed with cutting himself after the first time. It became a form of comfort for him to watch as he tore open his own flesh, creating more perfectly straight lines. He never cut deep enough to bleed to the point where he was in danger of dying but just deep enough to see the way his blood ran out of him, reminding him how precious his measly life was and how easy it was to end it all. 

This would become Eren Jaeger's daily life. Eren was forced to go back to school right after his mother's death, he wasn't allowed a grieving period because his father asked that his mother's death be kept under wraps. Nobody but Eren and the Emergency Room doctors and nurses who took care of his wife knew of her death and that's exactly how Grisha wanted it. It was a struggle to wake up everyday and go to school when he simply had no motivation to do so. Regardless, Eren tries to continue to please his father since he was the only one Eren had left now. 

He threw himself into his studies and occupied his free time in his basketball games and his team. It was all that he could do distract himself but Eren became even more withdrawn into himself after his mother's death. He stopped talking altogether, choosing to only speak when he was prompted to speak but otherwise, Eren was silent. Then the day finally came, the day when he could try to make things right. 

His father told him at the end of his Junior year that they were moving to a different town and Eren would attending a new high school, a better high school. The move was to be immediate and on the last day of school Eren used an entire free period to write out letters of apology to every single student he ever bullied. He remembered the names of every kid he tortured, remembered every slur he ever used, every punch he ever threw, every kick, every shove. When he had a good couple of dozens of formal, hand-written apologies in his hands at the end of the day, Eren left the stack of letters in the principal's office before he left that school for the last time. As he and his father drove away from the only town he had ever known, Eren felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and for the first time in his life, he was proud of _himself_.

He adjusted to his new life in no time, it was a fresh start for him and Eren knew he didn't want to fuck up his last year of high school. Nobody in this school knew him or what he had done in his past so he went about his school life dedicating himself to studying nonstop to graduate at the top of his class. His father still wasn't very present in his life but he never failed to drill it into Eren's head that he needed to be perfect and nothing less would be accepted. So even when he met a trio of seniors who insisted on being friends with him, Eren always ignored them and focused on nothing but his studies. 

He would find, however, that these particular trio of seniors were not very easy to shake. One of them was a peppy brunette with glasses named Hanji Zoe, they were easily excited and more often than not, Hanji was always the one to try and initiate conversation but Eren never indulged them. The second was a tall, built blond named Erwin Smith. Eren didn't mind Erwin so much, he was a tactful student with his studies and never tried to bother Eren when he saw that he was busy studying in Study Hall or researching something in the library. The third student, now the third student was an interesting and funny one. 

His name was Levi and he was -to put it bluntly- short. He wasn't exactly as loud or as talkative as Hanji and wasn't as reserved and polite as Erwin. He was blunt and had a rather colorful and interesting vocabulary. He had raven colored hair, sleek and shiny and always neatly parted just off the center. He had sharp, greyish-blue eyes and he was always either scowling or frowning with a look of boredom or simple indifference in his eyes and the senior just couldn't leave Eren alone. 

Levi, upon meeting Eren, thought the new brunet boy was simply amazing. He was tall, slender but with well toned muscle underneath taut, caramel skin. He was obviously in some sort of sport, though Levi couldn't exactly tell from looks alone. He had messy chestnut colored hair that he always wanted to run his fingers through and try to fix the mess of tangles the boy had but his most striking feature had to be those eyes of his. They were large, almond shaped and with the most interesting swirl of color. A mix between blue and green but mostly green. But what he saw in those eyes was a heavily broken person and Eren's eyes had been so empty and lifeless the first day he saw him. Levi wanted to bring the light back to that boy's eyes. 

Hanji and Erwin caught wind of Levi's interest in the new transfer student and of course, they had to join Levi's cause simply because they were assholes like that. Well, at least to Levi they were assholes. He knew they just wanted to watch him make a fool of himself in front of this boy he was so intrigued with. Their first conversation went very much like this. Eren had been sitting outside in front of the school, minding his own business as usual. Other students passed him by but barely spared him a glance as he buried his nose in one of his books that was filled with notes from his classes and Levi decided he'd be the one and speak to the boy first. 

"Hey," he said as he approached the brunet boy who didn't even bother to look up at the brief greeting. "Your name's Eren, right?" the raven took a seat next to the boy who slightly flinched away and only glanced up briefly to look at Levi with those stunning jewel like eyes of his but said nothing in response. 

"Oi." Levi tried again, nudging his knee against the boy's gently at first. Eren didn't say anything and didn't even look up at him or get angry because he was invading his personal space, which Levi understood was very important to some people; Himself included. 

Levi sighed and leaned back on the bench as he simply sat in silence with Eren who continued to ignore him but Levi was never a very patient person to begin with and eventually, the silence got to him once more and he scowled at the brunet who was still studying his notes and acting as if Levi wasn't even there in the first place. 

"Tch," the raven sucked his teeth loudly. "At least acknowledge my presence, you shit." but, of course, Eren said nothing and he simply stood up from his spot on the bench and stuffed his notes back into his backpack and started walking down the block to his home, Levi assumed, but he wasn't getting rid of Levi so easily. 

The raven stood up and caught up with the boy, eventually walking with him all the way back to his house while trying to engage in small talk but not once during the 30 minute walk to his house did the boy speak a single word or glance in Levi's direction. It was like Eren wasn't really there as he simply kept staring straight ahead with those dull, lifeless eyes that Levi adored and hated at the same time. He wanted to see those eyes lit with determination and passion. 

When Hanji and Erwin picked up on what Levi was trying to do, they naturally joined him in his efforts but like Levi had already assumed, they were simply tagging along for their own amusement. Although, all three did put in their fair share of effort to get the boy to talk. Eventually the trio was walking Eren home everyday, sitting with him every lunch period, helping him study in the library. Basically, sticking to the boy like glue until Graduation finally rolled around. Eren had gotten second best in his overall graduating class and while that itself was a great feat, the brunet did not seem in the least bit proud of himself which Levi simply couldn't understand why. Why did he feel the need to get the top scores? The top seat? To be perfect? 

Levi knew something was wrong when on the night of Graduation, Eren didn't show up. He missed his chance to cross stage and while Levi himself didn't care for anyone else crossing the stage except for Eren, he wondered what in the world could have happened to the boy that he would miss his own graduation ceremony. Eren hardly seemed like the type that would miss something as important as this, basically anything having to do with school, Eren made sure he never missed it. 

So when he didn't see Eren around the neighborhood he lived around for a few days, Levi began to worry. Just what had happened to Eren? Had he run away? Was placing second best among his graduation class that upsetting for him? The answer, Levi would never actually know, was that Eren had been beaten the night before his graduation by his father, only things had gotten worse this time around. 

His father had been furious that Eren didn't get first place in his graduation class and when the 18 year old broke the news to his father that evening over dinner, Grisha had taken the wine bottle and smashed it over his son's head causing Eren to fall off his chair at the dining table. His head was throbbing and he thought perhaps he'd felt blood from an open wound as well but his vision was too blurred and he was too disoriented to know for sure. The last thing he remembers is his father yelling at him as he kicked him in his stomach and ribs, 

_"Worthless! You couldn't even get first place in your graduating class! Just what have I been teaching you all these years!? Do you want to bring shame to your mother and I after everything we've done for you!?"_

Eren lost consciousness soon after the violent attack and he woke up the next morning with a gash in the corner of his forehead that had already dried over and clotted with old blood. Still disoriented, Eren stumbled to his feet and managed to get himself to a hospital. His father wasn't there when he woke up so he could only assume he had gone to one of this mistress's houses again after the assault. Good. Eren didn't want to deal with him today anyway. In the end, Eren ended up spending his Graduation night in the E.R getting his head stitched up and getting X-Rays and CTScans of his head done to make sure he didn't have a concussion. He did have a couple of broken ribs and a hairline fracture on his face. It didn't matter to him anyway. 

 

Eren managed to get his diploma anyway, despite missing his graduation. It was nothing short of a miracle and he was still able to apply for a very good University thanks to his good grades. He had been offered multiple scholarships but he eventually settled on the University his Father picked for him which was the University of Stohess. He wanted Eren to get into the field of Medicine just like him, Even though Eren's true passion had always been Photography or to be a Therapist. Not a Doctor like his father. But Eren had to be perfect and perfect is what he would be. 

Oddly enough, During his first semester at Uni, Eren ran into that same odd trio of seniors from his high school. Hanji, Erwin and Levi had all ended up attending the same University as him and it unsettled Eren deeply. All through his Senior year of high school the trio simply refused to leave him be, walking him home every day and sitting with him at lunch or in the library when he studied. He had told himself when he moved to this town that he wasn't going to bother having friends because he didn't deserve to have friends but no matter how much he ignored them, they always tried to push through his barriers anyway. 

A part of Eren, the part that he always chose to ignore, wanted nothing more than to be friends with the persistent trio of kids. Unintentionally, he'd grown fond of their presence. But how could he possibly be friends with them when his past still haunted him? He wasn't sure how, but he was still receiving death threats from his old class mates at his old high school and that was enough of a reminder that he had dirtied his hands too much to think he could start over fresh just because he moved a few cities over. His past was a poison and he'd never be able to find the cure for it. 

Unfortunately for Eren, Fate had other plans for him. One day during afternoon classes, Hanji had noticed the fresh bruises on his face from another night of getting beaten by his father. The bruises weren't nearly as bad as they had been in the summer before he attended University and he was thankful his father at least knew when to hold back even just a little but it didn't mean the light blossoming bruises weren't still there anyway. It was unavoidable to not have his bruises noticed by Hanji when he shared nearly every class with them, Hanji was also majoring to become a Doctor so it was just his luck. The brunette stuck to him like melted chewing gum left out on the sidewalk on a hot day, 

"Hey, Eren." they had asked him but he chose to ignore them. "Where did you get those bruises on your face? Were you in a fight?" they had asked softly but again, the brunet boy simply said nothing at all.

Of course, the brunette had brought the incident up to the other two members of their trio and expressed their concern for Eren. They eventually came to the conclusion that Eren must have been abused at home and that's why the boy was always coming to class with mysterious bruises and fresh wounds on his body. Levi was furious when they came to this conclusion. Was that why Eren never talked to him? He needed to know, _had_ to know. So, one day, the trio cornered Eren in an empty class room. 

"Eren," Hanji had started when they finally had the boy all to themselves in the empty classroom. "We think we know why you always come to school with bruises on your face and body." the trio could see the way Eren's body tensed up at their words but they continued anyway. "Eren, are you being abused at home?" they finally asked. 

Eren had gone completely rigid as he stared down at his sneakers, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides with a notebook in one and his heavy book bag slung over one of his slender shoulders. 

"Eren, please." Erwin tried next. "Talk to us." Still, they received nothing. Eren only subconsciously rubbed at the scars on his arms where he had cut himself multiple times during his senior year but had since stopped since starting University. 

Levi noticed the thin white lines adorning the brunet's arms and his eyes went wide as he roughly reached for Eren's wrists, sliding the sleeve of his soft grey long sleeved shirt up to reveal the long row of thin, white lines going up tanned arms. The brunet tried to pull out of Levi's grasp but the shorter boy was stronger, keeping a firm grip on the brunet the entire time as he stared wide eyed at the scars all over Eren's forearms and wrists. 

"Stop!" Eren's voice snapped at him causing Levi to jolt back in slight surprise. Eren had actually spoke. The trio all exchanged mutual looks of surprise between one another before their gaze settled back on the brunet boy was was slumping back against a wall while clutching his textbook close to his chest.

"You don't know anything." Eren's small but smooth voice came through as his long bangs hung in his eyes, shadowing them completely from view. The trio were still a bit shell-shocked from hearing Eren speak so much. They could literally count on one hand the amount of times they'd ever heard Eren speak and it was always whenever a teacher addressed him to do something for class. 

"Then tell us, Eren." Levi said harshly. He was infuriated. How had they not known that Eren was going through all of this at home, alone, with no friends to confide in. Even though they tried so hard to be there for him and make him feel like he was part of their group, Levi especially. "We won't understand if you don't fucking tell us what's going on." 

Eren hesitated for a long while, the trio backing up a bit to give him some space so he wouldn't feel like he was being pressured into telling them something he didn't want to. Eventually, Eren sighed. There really was no helping it, was there? With a shaky hand, he pushed some of his chestnut hair out of his face and inhaled deeply before he spoke. 

"I did some horrible things back at my old school. I never had any friends, really. Anyone who said they were my friends only wanted to hang out with me because of my parents money. The people I surrounded myself with were nothing but ruthless bullies who bullied me and peer-pressured me into bullying other innocent kids as well. I didn't even _want_ to bully them but I felt like I had to because if I didn't, then I'd be letting my parents down. I'm supposed to be the perfect son. I'm not supposed to get low grades or get bullied when I should be studying or winning games for my team." 

The trio took in the new information slowly but none dared to interrupt the boy as he paused to take in shaky breaths. Especially, Levi. He was the one who was listening so intensely to the sound of Eren's voice. He'd gone so long without hearing it and now that Eren was opening up, he was soaking it all in. Eren had a nice voice, he concluded, and he wanted to hear more of it. 

"My mom died when I was 16 and my dad blames me for her death. I convinced myself that it was my fault too so I started harming myself every chance I could. I thought I deserved it and I still do. I couldn't be the perfect son for her and she died. After that, my dad started beating me and then we moved here for my senior year but somehow my old classmates found out where I was and I'm still receiving death threats for all the shit I did at my old school." the brunet's fists clenched open and closed in front of him as he explained his past and it was obvious the memories still haunted him. Eren was broken but Levi did not think he was unfix-able. 

"Eren," Levi had started gently as he moved a little closer to the beautiful boy with a bruise underneath his chin. The raven crouched in front of him, still keeping some distance between the two of them but staring straight into Eren's dull emeralds orbs and holding his gaze as he spoke. "Do you want to escape from it?" Levi had asked. 

He noticed the way Eren's eyes seemed to shine at his question but then he was looking away and shrugging his shoulders, "Of course, I do. Who wouldn't?" he mumbled. 

"Then, do you want to come live with me?" Levi's question left everyone baffled, but Eren even more so as the brunet stared at him with wide eyes the size of saucers. 

"W-What?" Eren stuttered, not sure if he heard Levi correctly or not. 

Levi simply huffed, "You heard me, do you want to come live with me and get away from it all?" 

Eren started shaking his head in disbelief as he huffed out a dry, humorless laugh. "You don't even know me and you're asking me to come live with you? Are you crazy?" 

"Yes." Levi answered bluntly. "I'm absolutely crazy about a bright eyed brat who doesn't want to let anybody in because he's afraid he'll hurt them and it's true, I don't know the first fucking thing about you but..." Levi paused as he noticed Eren's shocked face. The raven couldn't help but give a small smile in return, "I would like to get to know you." 

_'Because you've always been perfect to me...'_

**Author's Note:**

> Had to give my babies some kind of a happy ending, even if it's not an ending filled with fluff.


End file.
